‘I was fighting to stop him but he was too strong’

After the case, Mr Hussein –wholivesabovethestore with his wife and two sons, aged six and 11 – recalled the evening when Armstrong targeted his business.

He said: “My staff were in the shop and I was upstairs. I was playing with my youngest son. There are CCTV monitors in the flat and we saw the man come in with a knife. He entered the shop and he was threatening my staff to hand over all the money from the till.

“He was unable to open the till without a transaction. My kids were playing and I could see everything upstairs on the CCTV. My youngest son noticed something was happening and started shouting then we saw a tall guy with a knife.

“I immediately came down and I tried to grab him but he was difficult to stop.

“It was wrong of me to to that as I didn’t know what was going to happen. I tried to stop him, I was fighting to stop him but he was too strong. He took the till and went outside and I followed him.”

Mr Hussein said his youngest son has been left traumatised by what hap- pened.

He added: “My son saw someone with a knife threatening my staff and he screamed. He was very upset and now he’s frightened, especially after dark.

“When I think about it now at the time I wasn’t frightened but now I think’ Oh, my God’.

“After what he did, the sentence is not enough.”